Changeling
by TheHummingbirdMoth
Summary: Odin is largely to blame for Loki and Loki is largely to blame for Odin.


WARNING: Lots of casual racism and ableism. Tread carefully. Slightly nastier depiction of Odin than we're usually given. Doesn't sync up with JMS's version of Loki's origin, but what can you do.

**Changeling**

He is, at first, a curiosity to you, this boy you find in the snow after you have laid waste to his clan, his cousins and siblings and parents, after you have burnt Laufey's mountain fortress the ground and scattered Laufey's army to the wind.

Your beard is thick with giant blood when you find him, sitting, cross-legged and mostly naked under a dead tree, watching your men stalk the killing fields with mercy-givers and clubs.

He doesn't try to run as you approach him, and if he had you would have hunted him like a deer, for the sheer sport of it, for you are still not satisfied with the day's slaughter. Appetite still gnaws at your belly; more blood, more sacrifices to feed your fledgling kingdom.

"Half-breed, are you?" you say in lieu of introducing yourself, staring down at him. For he must be, he's small even by your standards. He would fit comfortably in Laufey's palm.

His ears, tattooed like his naked scalp, twitch, and he stares up at you with eyes dark and analytical. He's got stones, this half-breed, you'll give him that. There's not many men left alive who've looked at you that way.

It is possible that he doesn't understand you, you realise, when he doesn't reply. Most giants can speak a few words of your tongue, but maybe Laufey deliberately forbade anyone speaking it in his son's presence. And this, surely, is Laufey;s son; you've heard of him, the runt giant, a matter of great shame to the Jotunn king. In the lower giant clans of the plains, it was wandered why Laufey had not exposed his youngest and most grossly deformed offspring to the elements at birth. In the higher giant clans on the mountains, it was rumoured that Laufey had done just that, and that the child had refused to die.

"I am Odin," you say, resisting the urge to follow up with all the titles and praise-names you've garnered among the Aesir.

The tiny giant licks his lips- bloodless things- and his fingers trail through the snow absently, making abstract patterns as the silence rolls on.

An amusing though enters your head, and you chuckle. You won't kill this one.

"I will call you Loki," you declare, and he never contests the name, not now, nor in any of the terrible years to come. (You never learn what his real name is, not in any of your lives.) Simply shrugs, then nods, then accompanies you to your horse. You hear someone mutter 'dirty little savage' as you pass by with him, and you wonder if he understands. His face remains as impassive as an ice-covered lake. He is, you decide, either admirably restrained, or he really doesn't understand your language.

You no longer feel unsatisfied with the day's slaughter. In adopting this child, you have murdered Laufey's line more completely than any genocide ever could.

This child will become yours. This child will become Aesir.

_**Rag**_

You grow to pity him.

You can't help it. Old age has made you soft, and the birth of Thor- the birth of your son, your beautiful, perfect, golden son- introduces you to more tender emotions. You don't think you have ever cherished or been so proud of anything in your life. Thor is a healthy child, a loud, angry child, everything you are, but better. You look at your people and look at your son, and are pleased. They will, as they grow to become the greatest kingdom in existence, need a hero. Thor will suit the role perfectly.

It shames you to think of your golden son in terms of what role you may have for him to fill, but you cannot help it. You have been nation-building your entire life, and do not know how to stop.

When you first bring the child you have dubbed Loki to court, he is five and Thor is six. You have carefully coached Thor beforehand on the proper way to treat his new giant brother. Not to be cruel, not to be patronising, not to be offhand. When you introduce them, Thor smiles hugely and crushes his new brother to him in a hug that forces air from the smaller boy's lungs. You chuckle, and ruffle Thor's hair, and leave them alone to play. (That is the extent of your involvement in their story, at least. Whatever happens between them from that point on is between them.)

The child still says nothing, and you worry that this shrunken giant you have brought into your family is defective in more ways than one. Beyond his stubborn silence, he has no aptitude for games or wrestling, he doesn't like listening to the stories of the old warriors. Indeed, he scarcely does anything. Most of the time he sits, very still, in dark corners in crowded rooms. Occasionally he will have a book open on his lap (it is years before you realise that you never taught him to read and wonder who did) but most of the time he will simply sit, head bowed, unobtrusive, listening to people talk around him.

It's a habit of his that irritates you, that listening. He does it at doors, at windows. You will finish an important discussion with a diplomat from Vanaheim, only to find him standing behind you, silent as the grave, listening. Others about the palace complain of it too, and when the complaining stops, you suspect it is not because Loki has stopped listening, but because he has become better at concealing himself.

At seven, he begins to speak, at last, startling you one morning when he asks for more milk and honey across the table at breakfast. Naturally, he doesn't do it properly. Raising Thor alongside him, you know how children are supposed to talk. They aren't supposed to talk in monotones, as articulate as many learned adults before they even reach the age of eight.

They are supposed to lie, though, that is normal, so the first time he does it to your face, you take it in stride. Scold him, make him give bake the piece of honeyed cake he stole from the palace kitchens, and think no more of it.

The second time it happens, you take it in stride.

Then the third. Then the fourth. You are not an incredibly attentive parent, so you don't notice the exact point at which the number of lies he has told you outweighs the number of truths. He lies to you, constantly, chronically, in private and in front of Thor, in front of the palace guards, in front of the entire assembled court, until you feel your throne room is painted glossy with his lies.

_**Na**_

You grow to loathe him. "You should have known you would," Frigg, your wife, murmurs, for she always did know you best. She won't help you though (but who has ever helped Odin?)

Your adopted son is not admirably restrained, he is uncannily restrained. As restrained as grass, or a piece of stone. Nothing moves him, not tongue-lashings, not beatings, not bullying or bruises. Not kind words or marvellous presents or encouragement from his tutors. In your quest to wring one iota of reaction from him, you shower more attention, positive and negative, on his head than you ever shower on Thor's. Thor shows no resentment, but then, Thor is Thor.

Eventually, he does begin to show flashes of emotion, flashes that become stronger with time. Sarcasm creeps into his voice, eventually driving out the monotone. A shrill, petulant whine that enters his voice whenever he is appealing to you for mercy instead of punishment. Amusement, of a sharp and hideous kind, whenever one of his playmates trips or stubs his toe.

Those are the real emotions, but there are other ones. There are the lies; the sorrow on his face when he repents before you; the charm in his laugh whenever you tell a joke; dozens of similar masks, many of them adapted from Balder, or Sif, or Frigg. He seems able to break your glorious Aesir down into their base components, and steal whatever he likes like a graverobber. Whenever he is obliging, you can take one look at him and tell it for the lie it is. The worst is when he tries to emulate Thor, playing at nobility, adopting Thor's righteous airs judgemental frowns. Nobility looks wrong on him, so wrong that his attempts at copying his brother become a vicious parody, and you, once or twice, give in to the urge to throw things at him to make him stop.

He isn't Thor. He's nothing compared to Thor. He never boldly contradicts you, like Thor does, or argues with you, like Thor does. He smiles, and simpers, and then goes off to commit atrocities behind your back, and then, cowering, tries to weasel his way out of punishment when he is inevitably caught. It drives you to distraction, then rage. How passive this boy is, how pathetic, how yielding to your every wish, and, despite all that, how resilient is the ice in heart.

How is it that this creature has the power to _hurt _you?

Because you can make the words 'master' and 'Allfather' and 'my lord' pass his lips, but you can't force out one single syllable of love or humble affection from him. Can't make him hug you or kiss your cheek, can't make him laugh the way normal boys should laugh.

It hits you like a falling star, the realisation that he hates you. You hadn't thought it possible. Millions hate you, but this one…. This one you've invested time and effort in, have treated like a son and tolerated his antics, base and vile as they often were.

You'd known he resented you; what man or woman of giant blood wouldn't, after you'd shattered their temples and drowned the nine worlds in their blood? But all of the Aesir resented you when your first started campaigning, expanding Asgard, your own father resented you before he saw your vision start to bare fruit, your wives resented your long absences before you brought them back riches and offered them titles and land. Everyone has resented Odin at one point or another, his battle-brothers and his kin, but all have overcome their resentment once Odin has laid the world, dead, at their feet.

You have done so much in your very long life, it had never occurred to you that there might be things you would never be forgiven for.

You are not sure how many dead worlds you will have to lay at this child's feet to appease him.

_**Rok**_

You grow to live in mortal terror, of him and for him.

The Ragnarok cycle repeats and repeats. He slays all Asgard, burns your kingdom to the ground and buries it beneath ash a hundred times, a thousand, a million, and more, and he is never satisfied. There does not seem to be enough blood or misery in your land or your people for him, still more must be shaken out, more slaughter, more slaughter, more slaughter, never enough. The cycle does not always repeat exactly the same way; sometimes Thor kills him just as Ragnarok is descending, sometime you kill him, sometimes he kills both of you. But it doesn't matter, for the end always follows shortly after, and his green eyes, dead or triumphant, chase you into the pit and then into the next reincarnation where he is always waiting for you. He devours world after world, and often it seems as though he doesn't even enjoy doing it, but he does it all the same, every time.

You can hear Laufey's low, rasping laugh dripping into your ear every night.

You think, perhaps, you are being punished for something.


End file.
